UCLA

This paper examines the information contained in analyst forecast revisions following earnings announcements. I find that sorting firms on aggregated forecast revisions generates a much stronger post-earnings-announcement drift than sorting on measures of earnings surprises. The strong association between aggregated forecast revisions and post-earnings-announcement returns is driven by the subsample of firms with large-magnitude earnings surprises. This result is consistent with analysts’ roles in interpreting corporate earnings. Further, the mispricing is the strongest when forecast revisions contradict earnings surprises, suggesting investors have difficulties in processing contradictory signals. Lastly, I document aggregated forecast revisions are more informative when the information environment around earnings announcements is more opaque, when firms have high accruals and when investors do not pay attention to the firm. They are less informative when analysts disagree with each other. Overall, these results point to the value of analyst forecast revisions following earnings announcements.